Do you use a passcode on your iPhone? Apple marketing boss Phil Schiller thinks you should, and even has a new feature on the iPhone 5S that will let you make iTunes purchases with the touch of a finger.

Like music? Then you should head over to iTunes right after reading this. In a rare move for Apple, dozens upon dozens of hit songs from the 1970s, 1980s, 1990s, 2000s, and today are available for just $.69 a song. Normally this is the kind of thing you only find on Amazon, so you should take advantage of it while you can if you like to download all your music through iTunes.

Apple's cash hoard is well publicized. It is the stuff of legends — so much so, you'd almost expect there to be a dragon sitting on top of it, guarding it from would-be burglars. We don't live in a world where you can feast, sing some songs, and then set off with a band of dwarves in search of long forgotten gold; we just clog up the courts with frivolous lawsuits instead. And sometimes, that dragon guarding Cupertino's gold, more commonly known as the legal department, is more than enough to put an end to the journey of those seeking what they falsely believe is their share of the treasure. Let's take a look at the end of two such non-epic quests for Apple's gold.

If you enjoyed Star Trek: Into Darkness, it's a good time to be an Apple aficionado. As reported by MacRumors, the iTunes Movie Store is making the film available a full three weeks ahead of its official September 10 release for DVD.

We're getting closer and closer to Apple's fall event, which means more rumors are cropping up, leaks are making headlines, claimed leaks are competing for news cycle oxygen, and jockeying for a little time on Apple's hobby TV box thingamajig is becoming more interesting. Did you miss any of that this week? Well, climb aboard, kids, because we're gonna do the news in ten.

In a move that could signal that Apple is starting to take independent streaming radio stations more seriously, the Cupertino company sent an e-mail to multiple radio stations asking them to submit cover art for future use on mobile device and iTunes.

Earlier we reported that Netflix was bringing some surprises of its own to Apple TV in the form of personalized profiles, but yesterday Apple itself rolled out another update for the beta that gives us even more to look forward to when the new software for the device goes live later this year. As reported by AppleInsider, beta users can now buy songs and videos (again) on the device and connect to it with other Apple devices.

There's something about music that brings us together. From drum circles to the original Napster, our favorite songs somehow sound better when we share them with other people. Even when we're rocking out to our iPods, we want our friends to know what we're listening to, endlessly tweeting and posting updates to our Twitter followers and Facebook friends. Nwplyng looks to clean up our social feeds with a whole new way to share. Despite its name (Now Playing minus the vowels), it isn't another digital jukebox. Instead, Nwplyng wants to be your favorite app for sharing and discovering new songs by turning the process into something of a competition.

It's only been a couple of months since Apple's announcement that the App Store had passed 50 billion downloads, and now it's announcing that more than 1 billion users now subscribe to podcasts available through iTunes. In celebration, it's letting users download what may be called the "greatest hits" of the platform's podcast through a special tab on the iTunes store.

School might still be well over a month away for most of the country's high school and college students, but Apple looks poised to reboot its annual Back to School promotion as early as tomorrow, according to 9to5 Mac. But with this season's offering, they're throwing in a little treat. For the first time, students and eligible buyers will receive App Store/iTunes gift cards for buying iPhones, much as they've received gift cards for Macs and iPads in the past.